Interested in using webcams to translate on-screen motion to MIDI? Want x, y, and z 3D tracking? Ben Tan writes to let us know about his in-development software project called Peripheral MIDI Controller (pmidic) which does just that. The current build is still a work in progress, but has added enough stability and features that it should be worth a look.

Grab your pen light and start waving it around for filter cutoff and resonance — whoo!

Right now, it’s Windows-only, but the libraries on which it’s built are cross-platform and could be ported to both Linux and Mac. (He’s using Intel’s OpenCV, which is the most popular, open platform for computer vision — odds are if you’ve seen slick webcam tricks, OpenCV was involved, because writing these algorithms from scratch requires a heavy-duty math and computer science background. And the app itself is built with the superb super-cross-platform wxWidgets library.)

If you’ve been looking to experiment with webcam control, this could be a good start — practicing interpreting the control data, experimenting with lighting, and experimenting with inputs all take time. And if you’re a coder, the project is open, so all of us C++ beginners can slog a little collectively.

Just to let y'all know…that screenshot is from the previous release (Alpha). The current version (0.5) has a slightly better looking UI. I'll put up some better screenshots on the pmidic website soon. Videos of pmidic in action can be expected soon as well

http://www.createdigitalmusic.com Peter Kirn

Well, the editor (cough, cough) is supposed to do a screen grab — I was away at my Mac. I'll fire it up on the PC and give it a go and snap something myself.

Paolo V

It's interesting!

Can you give me an advise for a webcam to buy? I need to check the specifications or all webcam is good for your software?

Creative Labs Live Cam Optia seem to be a good choice if it works without driver on XP sp2

http://www.myspace.com/concencrate ConcenCrate

YAY! some food for the tech-nerd in me!

Gav Smith

This software is great. Although I've not yet managed to set it up as a midi input device. I want to use it to drive Absynth 8 and point the cam at glass box full of ants. I think ants would generate some interesting synth music.

then I'd like to point it at a lava lamp, then I'd like to find out how to translate the midi into data that I can set to the parallel port to a IO card and use it to control stepper motors that control a humanoid sculpture, which you could control with your body movement.

Then I'll try using it as a weather monitor by pointing the cam at the sky and listening to the approaching weather fronts.